Voters hand Democratic Party of Japan landslide win

DPJ head Yukio Hatoyama places red rose by each winning candidateDaylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

The Democratic Party of Japan won the Lower House election by a landslide Sunday and was poised to grab more than 300 seats in the 480-seat chamber.

The victory by the main opposition party would end more than half a century of almost uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.It would also usher in DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama, 62, as the new prime minister by mid-September…

Flush with victory, DPJ executives started full-fledged preparations for launching a new administration in the evening, party sources said, adding that talks were also planned with its two allies — the Social Democratic Party and Kokumin Shinto (People’s New Party) — on forming a coalition government.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Taro Aso said he will step down as LDP president to “take responsibility” for his party’s defeat. An election to pick his successor as LDP chief will be held soon, he said. LDP Secretary General Hiroyuki Hosoda also said on NHK the party’s top three executives have all expressed their intention to resign to Aso…

DPJ deputy chief Ichiro Ozawa declined comment before the poll results were complete but said “there is nothing (for voters) to worry” about concerning an impending change in government. “We’d like to steadily implement what we have promised to the nation,” Ozawa told NHK.

Owing to strong voter interest, final turnout could reach 69.52 percent, exceeding the 67.51 percent in the previous general election in 2005.

I wonder how honorable the LDP will be in defeat. They could always follow the Republican model and work to impede adoption of serious legislative changes – and rely on the cowardly lions of the media to stump up reporting of their own version of teabagging.